The Silencers of the Lambs

“Don’t give any of your children to be burned in sacrifice to the god Molech” —Leviticus 18:21

I first wrote this in 2017 after what was then the largest mass shooting event in American history at a concert in Las Vegas where 60 people were killed and over 400 were wounded. Deaths by gunfire continued unabated until in 2020 firearms became the leading cause of death for children under age 19. 

We like to think of ourselves as an advanced, technological society. With smug self-assurance we compare ourselves to primitive cultures, thinking that we have out-grown our ancestors' child-sacrificing ways. But in America, we have not. We continue to sacrifice our children and move on. Sandy Hook proved that. The American idol is the gun, enshrined by our culture, our courts, and the politicians we keep voting for.  

After every mass shooting in this country, the usual platitudes are proffered. Elected officials call for a "moment of silence" along with "thoughts and prayers" for the victims. Government officials will hold a press conference. It happens so often, we have memorized the script. Indeed this "shooting script" has become the liturgy of our American civil religion.

The media will camp out at the crime scene craving any morsel of information. Pundits will endlessly debate as to what motivated the shooter and what signs were missed. They will try to put together a story to make sense of it all, believing that as long as we have a motive, all is well with the world.

The supply chain will eventually be traced. What store were the weapons purchased from? Were the weapons purchased legally?  Did anyone flag the purchase of so many weapons or thousands of rounds of ammo? The insane amount of firepower available to average citizens is almost never questioned.

I thought about how to address this issue. The usual pro and anti gun arguments are well-worn. The sacredness of the second amendment. Registration leads to confiscation. So let me narrow the focus down to the religious of this country, specifically Christians, those who claim Christ as their savior.

I assume that Christians would be familiar with scriptures and the oft repeated imperative to "fear not". Yet how is it that we live in an age of fear, fear of crime, fear of terrorists, fear of government tyranny? It is because we feast on media that traffics in fear and outrage. The need for insane amounts firepower is a response to insane amounts of fear and rage.

If believers in Jesus cannot lay aside their fears, then who can? Jesus told the story of a man who was fully armed to protect himself and his home. Then one day, thieves broke in and overpowered him, leading Jesus to ask, "what became of the arms in which the man trusted?" The answer is obvious; at the critical moment, they were ineffective.

It is my hope that believers can separate themselves from this fear-driven, toxic, paranoid gun culture and see how thoroughly incompatible it is with following Christ. Otherwise we will continue the farce of being a follower of Jesus, pro-life when it comes to the unborn and pro-death when it comes to opposing any restriction on assault weapons.

Never Again?

We are observing milestones in world history. The 80th anniversary of the Invasion of Poland and World War Two. The 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. A common refrain heard during these observances is "Never Again". Yet we seem to have learned nothing from these events in history.

Presidential orders have turned hatred into policy.  The administration has banned Muslim travel to the US, is building a wall on our southern border, regularly posts dog-whistle comments to foment open racism and anti-Semitism.  

It makes me think about my very existence. My father fled Poland during World War II through a number of countries, finally ending up in the US. His father, mother, and sister did not make it. Except for my sister, I have no surviving relatives on my father's side.

As a young man, I worked in a TV repair shop (yes, we used to fix them).  I made many service calls to Polish neighborhoods in southwest Detroit. In those days, very few homes were air conditioned. In the summer heat, my customers wore light garments with short sleeves. From time to time I would see numbers tattooed on people's forearms. We would briefly look each other in the eye without a word. No comments were necessary.

I married the daughter of immigrants. My entire family is built on immigration. So yes,  I get emotional when talking about immigration. 

I have lived and worked with a multitude of ethnicities. I have been welcomed into the homes of Muslim, Christian, and Hindu families. I have broken bread and shared drinks with coworkers and neighbors come from all over the globe. Some own businesses that employ people and in so doing, multiply the GDP of this nation. All of these people are hard-working, tax paying citizens. And good neighbors. This is the rich DNA of America. This is an existential issue. If we deny immigration, America will die of a self-inflicted wound.

So in this climate of hate, I worry. I worry about my neighbors and friends being profiled. I worry about their families. I worry about them when they travel outside our borders that another arbitrary order will come down and block their entry. I worry that history is repeating itself. 

Singling out an ethnic or religious group as an "enemy" is the beginning of road that humanity has been down many times. It is a time-honored political strategy to create an "enemy" and make them the object of fear and derision. America is better than this. And, if America is not better than this, then we should dispense with the pretense. That we are a nation of immigrants. Once we shut the door, we are not. That we are a "Christian" nation. If we bar the "least of these", then we are not. We have denied Christ.

On the Statue of Liberty, there is a plaque and inscription by Emma Lazarus:

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”  

If we bar the "tired, poor masses" who have been huddled in refugee camps for years, who have fled unimaginable violence, then we should give the statue back to France. We are not deserving of the gift and the honor it bestows.

Or perhaps we will wake up to what is threatening to overtake us.  America is not perfect nor has it been. Yet every day I see examples of good people doing good things. Will we join together with people of good will and stand up for what is good and right about America? Because if we don't stand up for what is good and right about our country, we will lose it.

Ministering in Weakness

"See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey"  - Zechariah 9:9

This verse came to mind as I was reflecting on this past week. It has been a week where my presence seemed to offer very little. I became reacquainted with my own vulnerabilities. Then I thought about Palm Sunday.

This verse predicts Jesus' entrance into Jerusalem, but it certainly is an oxymoron. A king? Riding on a donkey? In one sentence we have a picture of both strength and weakness. Perhaps that's a picture of Jesus' followers: strength and weakness. 

As a follower of Christ, I'd like to think that I was always helping, always ministering from a vantage point of strength. As an educated professional, a male of European descent, it is too easy to fall into this conceit. But Jesus demonstrates another way. He deliberately chooses his ride. A peasant's borrowed  beast. A symbol of weakness. 

The Western Church, ("Christendom") has only known how to operate from a position of strength. It is the legacy of Constantine, who made Jesus the patron of Imperial Rome. But now the Western Church has found that strength fading. It finds itself less welcome in halls of power. And if it is accepted at all, it is to legitimize civil ceremonies and war. But mostly, it finds itself irrelevant and bereft of power. 

"For more than two centuries [Western power] has provided the framework in which the Western churches have understood their world missionary task. To continue to think in the familiar terms is now folly. We are forced to do something that the Western churches have never had to do since the days of their own birth – to discover the form and substance of a missionary church in terms that are valid in a world that has rejected the power and the influence of the Western nations. Missions will no longer work along the stream of expanding Western power. They have to learn to go against the stream. And in this situation we shall find that the New Testament speaks to us much more directly that does the nineteenth century as we learn afresh what it means to bear witness to the gospel from a position not of strength but of weakness." -Lesslie Newbigin

So this Palm Sunday, we are all reminded of weakness: our own, the church, and perhaps most importantly the weakness Jesus deliberately chose to manifest as he entered the world. It was out of that weakness that he most clearly identified with us, atoned for us, and changed the world. Not through the coercion of power, but through the vulnerability of love. That is where we will find our strength.

Who for Our Sakes Became Accessible

"For your sakes, he became poor..." - St. Paul

This Advent, I thought about how much God gave up to enter our world in the person of Jesus Christ. I also thought about why He did it. He did it to become accessible....to all people. To do that, he had to become one of us, and not just the "one percent", but the "ninety-nine percent". He had to choose the lowest common denominator. To that end, he had to enter the world poor. To be poor is to have neither resources nor status. God gave up both. Christ was born in a barn, with animals. He was born as a refugee.  In many respects he was born in circumstances similar to what a great many displaced people experience in the modern world.

To be poor is to be denied access. Access to food, housing, medical care, a safe environment, dignity, and social standing. There were many barriers to access in Jesus' day. Being a Gentile, Being diseased ("unclean"). Being a foreigner. Being a woman. These barriers were used by the elite to keep out the undesirables. However, it seemed that everyone who was barred from approaching God by the religious elite was welcomed by Jesus. In fact, breaching social and religious barriers was a hallmark of Jesus' ministry. 

From what we know, Jesus grew up as the son of a tradesman. For most of his life, he worked in the family business. His first recorded public appearance was submitting to John's baptism. This was certainly an act of humility, as the religious leaders of the time would not submit to John's baptism. This public act of humility was the first of many. Subsequent acts of humility would have the dual effect of distancing Jesus from the religious elite and drawing him closer to the poor and outcast. Jesus did not exclude the elite. But the elite excluded themselves: either they admitted no need of the prophet from Galilee or would not risk their social status to associate with him.

The birth of Christ was announced with the message of unrestricted access: "Be not afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all people". Despite the message of open access, subsequent church history has more than enough examples of walls being built. Today, the same people-groups are excluded along with some new categories: race, gender-identity, the elderly, and the undocumented. However, the greatest barriers come from our comfortable but isolated first-world lives, our technology, and ultimately modernity itself. Differences of belief and social status still separate us as human beings and from God.

So if these barriers trouble us, what are we to do? This Christmas, might I suggest something different, non-traditional, and non-religious. Reach out to those who are otherwise forgotten. Buy a cup of coffee for the bell-ringer outside your grocery store. The person inside the gas station booth. Public safety personnel working the holidays. The homeless person holding up a sign at the intersection. Nursing home residents and workers. Acts of kindness chip away at the barriers, the walls separating people from each other. If you will permit yourself an open mind, ponder the meaning of Jesus' words: "If you have done it for the least of these, you have done it to me". Beginning with simple acts of kindness, you might find Jesus in the place you least expected to find him.

Merry Christmas

Taking the Exit - Why I left the Institutional Church

This past July I attended my last Sunday morning service. Most likely it is the last institutional church I will ever be a member of. I had been coming to this point for a long time.

I have been a Christ-follower for 40 years. I started out Catholic but left my faith when I was 14. I returned to faith in a small Evangelical church when  I was 18. In all I have been a part of four different churches. Of the four, two had moral failures of the leadership and one had a culture clash and power struggle that decimated the church.

At first glance, these problems would appear to be the weaknesses and failures of men. However, I realized that the failures were structural. Because of the power structures in place, the failures of men became the failures of institutions. I realized that the power structure itself was the problem.

I have always wondered how we went from Christ's teaching "call no one master", "do not Lord over others", and "you have one teacher and you are all brothers" to the hierarchies we see today. I finally found the "tipping point" in history. It occurred between ~100 AD to ~150 AD. St Clement taught obedience to a hierarchy (bishop, presbyter, elder). The result was a passive laity totally subordinate to clergy. After that, Ignatius of Antioch sealed the deal by affirming this arrangement in his writings before he was martyred. At that point the church became a power structure. Despite major and minor attempts at reform, the power structures of the institutional church remain until this day.

But is that what Jesus intended? Was His kingdom meant to be another earthly power structure? Or was it to be a place with only one head, Christ himself?  A place where all men and women are brothers and sisters. A place where everyone is empowered to serve one another. A place with no agenda but the well being of another. I had been looking to the institution to reflect this kind of kingdom and found it wanting. I might hope to find Jesus' kingdom in another institution, but that would be like panning for gold in the shower. It is possible in theory, but just not likely.

So now my faith journey has taken me outside of the institutional system I have been a part of for 40 years. I would be lying if I did not admit its effect on me. I had become dependent on it.

"These walls are funny. First you hate 'em, then you get used to 'em. Enough time passes, you get so you depend on them. That's institutionalized. " - Red (Shawshank Redemption)

So what will this require of me? It will require me to mature in my faith. I can no longer be dependent on someone else to set the course or to take the initiative. I will need to be more open. I will need to be more hospitable. I will need to be more receptive to God's work in the world, both inside and outside of the institution.

Taking the exit and leaving the main highway is scary when the roads do not show up on your GPS. However I have a feeling a great many others have taken the exit as well.  Sooner or later, I expect to find them. I may even find people who are willing to journey with me. Time will tell.




 

Blessed are the Peacemakers

Zealots will make the most inflamatory films and cartoons and give the most incendiary speeches knowing full well that this will spark people and even whole nations to violence. For those of us who think of ourselves as "Christ's Followers", we might recall that Jesus said, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God". Peacemaking is a dangerous business, more dangerous than war perhaps, because in war only one side will try to kill you. Eight hundred years ago, in the midst of another war between Christians and Muslims, someone was brave enough to take Christ at his word and make the attempt.

In 1219 St. Francis and Brother Illuminato accompanied the armies of western Europe to Damietta, Egypt, during the Fifth Crusade. His desire was to speak peacefully with Muslim people about Christianity, even if it mean dying as a martyr. He tried to stop the Crusaders from attacking the Muslims at the Battle of Damietta, but failed. After the defeat of the western armies, he crossed the battle line with Brother Illuminato, was arrested and beaten by Arab soldiers, and eventually was taken to the sultan, Malek al-Kamil. Al-Kamil was known as a kind, generous, fair ruler. He was nephew to the great Salah al-Din. At Damietta alone he offered peace to the Crusaders five times, and, according to western accounts, treated defeated Crusaders humanely. His goal was to establish a peaceful coexistence with Christians. After an initial attempt by Francis and the sultan to convert the other, both quickly realized that the other already knew and loved God. Francis and Illuminato remained with al-Kamil and his Sufi teacher Fakhr ad-din al-Farisi for as many as twenty days, discussing prayer and the mystical life. When Francis left, al-Kamil gave him an ivory trumpet, which is still preserved in the crypt of the Basilica of San Francesco in Assisi. This encounter, which occurred between September 1 and 26, is a paradigm for interfaith dialog in our time. Despite differences in religion, people of prayer can find common ground in their experiences of God. Dialog demands that we truly listen to the other; but, before we can listen, we must see the other as a precious human being, loved by God. There is no other path to peace in this bloody 21st century. Francis and his brothers did not make this trip as part of the battle to regain the Holy Land. Rather, they went in opposition to the mainstream theological and political orthodoxies of the time, to meet the Muslim people, and to live among them as “lesser brothers.” Francis and his brothers went to be present among this people who were being portrayed as evil enemies of Christ, and, in his evangelism of presence, Francis found the spirit of God to be alive and at work within the Muslim people, then called “the Saracens”. Francis admired their public, repeated acknowledgment of God and call to prayer, and he appreciated the deep reverence they showed to their holy book, the Qur’an. While the main trend of the time was for Christian preachers to deliver strident, inflammatory sermons against Islam, Francis forbade his brothers to take part in these exercises. He demanded that his brothers be present first and foremost, living with and among the Saracens. They were to preach only if they felt that it would “please the Lord.” Francis worked to prevent the brotherhood from becoming embroiled in the grasp for civil and ecclesiastical offices and power, and kept the community’s focus on serving their neighbors for the glory of God only.
-Jesus-Like Living in the Midst of Other Religions by Ron Cole.

The result of this encounter was that Francis was allowed safe conduct. Christian control of Holy sites was granted and has remained until this day. Otherwise, Francis' brave act of peace-making has been largely forgotten. For that matter, so have the words of Christ which Francis acted upon. The challenge of our day is reclaim these words of Christ and act on them.

Where is Jesus?

I recently had the opportunity to travel to Greece. I visited Greek Orthodox churches and a number of Greek homes. I observed that there were icons (religious paintings or reliefs of saints and Christ) everywhere: in churches, in taxi's, and in homes. In one home in particular there was a large icon of Christ in the hallway. Wanting to take a group portrait, the patriarch of the family half-jokingly said we should gather under the portrait of Jesus, to include Him.

The idea that we should include Jesus in our photo, persisted in my thoughts. It seemed absurd to me that Jesus was a portrait on the wall and that we should go gather by His picture to include Him in a snapshot of our lives. Then came my "ah-hah" moment. The location of Jesus has been the source of much, if not all the controversy within Christianity!

Having attended churches of at least five denominations, I have observed Christians have many differing beliefs as to where Jesus is located. Some believe that Jesus' entire substance is in the bread and the wine. Others say that Jesus' entirety is encompassed by word and sacrament. Still others say He is contained by the word alone ("sola scriptura"). So where exactly is Jesus? Where should I expect to find him?

I remembered reading that Jesus could often be found in the presence of outcasts: tax collectors, prostitutes, the poor, and those rejected by the religious establishment. Among the "least of these", Jesus often said "the Kingdom of God is near". He equated His presence among misfits with the nearness of God's Kingdom. I also recalled that when Jesus was asked when and where the Kingdom would come, he replied "The Kingdom of God is within you!"

Tolstoy defined the "Kingdom of God is within you" not as a mystical religion but as a "new conception of life." So what does this have to do with the picture, the icon on the wall? Well, the picture is one way of locating Jesus, albeit in a mystical religious way. On the other hand, if I take Jesus at his word, that the Kingdom of God is within me, then Jesus is not just a picture on the wall! A "new conception of life" is that His Kingdom is within me and that His life must be expressed through me. I must conceive of my life differently!

You'll End up Giving Your Life....

Over the last couple of weeks I've had a chance to watch a couple of movies produced by the Eastwood family: (Clint and his kids) "Gran Torino" and "Rails and Ties". In each movie, the theme is the same: the principal character is hardened by life, miserable in their misanthropy, until they encounter people in their lives who somehow manage to break the shell around their hearts. Once that shell cracks, they find themselves feeling and then acting on compassion they have developed for others. What is catalytic in bringing out that compassion differs in each story. In one story, it is the unrelenting kindness of strangers. In the other case, it is guilt, regret, and finally the need of an orphan child that does it.

I loved these movies because they are stories of redemption. I've also learned something from them: if you start loving people, get involved in their lives and all their pain, you'll end up giving your life for others. This is the path of following Christ. If you allow Christ to break all the hardness around your heart, you will become vulnerable to pain and need of others. When that happens, comforting others means more to you than avoiding your own pain. In the end, you will give up your life. In doing so, you will find it!